Beginnings
by Ignotus Somnium
Summary: Before there was Phantom. Drabble series about what made the characters who they became.
1. 1: Cat

**A/N: I don't really like author notes, but this might require one. I promise not to make it a habit.**

**This is going to be a bunch of one-shots set before the show. Most of them will relate to the Fenton family in some way, but I have a couple ideas to write about the various ghosts too. They're all connected, in that they won't contradict each other (intentionally), but they'll probably jump around a bit.****  
Sorry in advance if I don't update much. Of course I decided to start a project the week before college.**

* * *

_Cat_

It was always there, like a silent guardian. Every time they came it was sitting in the same place. Every time they left, they did so under its watchful gaze.

If not for the faint shifting of fur when it breathed she might almost have thought it was a statue. It was large for a cat and as grey as the stone pillar it sat upon. She could swear it never blinked or even twitched an ear. It just sat there, as if entranced by something she couldn't see.

"Maddie, don't dally!" her mother called. Madeline looked away from the cat, suddenly realizing her parents were far ahead of her. She shouted an apology and started running to them.

They'd first come five years ago. Maddie couldn't remember it, of course. She had only been a baby at the time. But every year since they would visit three times: Mothers' Day, The Birthday, and The Anniversary. That was how she'd learned to separate it, at least. It was too weird to say "Grannie's Birthday" when she didn't even know the person.

She slowed down as she met up with her parents. Her skirt was dirty from the dust on the gravel path, but she didn't really care. Mom never yelled at her on these days.

"Hey, Mom?" she said, suddenly thinking of something. "You know that cat?"

"Of course, dear," her mother said absently. Her eyes were pink and puffy, and her makeup was splotchy.

"W—Nevermind," Maddie said. She didn't want to make her mom more upset. Her father tousled her hair.

"No, it's okay," he said. "What about the cat?" Maddie looked nervously at her mother, but then smiled up at her dad.

"What if it's Grannie?"

Her mother laughed, but it turned into a sob halfway through. She covered her mouth with a hand and closed her eyes. Dejected, Madeline slouched her shoulders and looked at the ground.

"Maybe it is, Mads," Dad said softly. He patted her head again and then went over to Mom. They hugged and he started whispering to her. Maddie just sat down on the grass and looked at the small gray stone on the ground. It was such a simple thing. It looked a lot like the stepping stones in the sandbox at the playground, or like a small version of the steps to her front door. The only big difference was the words. Steps didn't have words on them. Graves did. Maddie couldn't read a whole lot. She knew her alphabet, but sometimes words didn't sound like they looked. This, though, she could read. Her parents had read it to her every day they came.

"Madeline Elizabeth Blanchet. 1912-1964. The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity."

Maddie knew that she didn't entirely understand the quote. It sounded happy to her. It made it feel like Grannie was just born somewhere else, or was happy in some new life. But every time they came Mom cried, and Dad got quiet. Dad was almost never quiet. He was always telling her stories, or trying to teach her how to fix old appliances and play catch. He wasn't sad.

After a while the two adults wordlessly started to walk away. Maddie stood up and followed them, her eyes still on the ground. Maybe they would get ice cream afterwards. Sometimes Dad would do that when everyone was in a bad mood. The idea cheered her up a bit.

They reached the gate, and the cat was still there. It still didn't look like it had moved.

An idea popped into Maddie's head. "Hey, Missus Cat!" she said. Her parents paused, but she kept looking at the cat. "Missus Cat! Can you hear me?" The cat didn't move. "Who are you?"

An ear flicked. The baleful yellow eyes met hers. The cat blinked once, twice, and then it stood up and walked down the stone wall to the next column.

Maddie's dad chuckled, and the adults continued on to the car. They didn't see the cat disappear into thin air. But Maddie did.


	2. 2: Dragon

**To clear up some possible confusion: The individual chapters aren't usually origin stories per se. I'll be doing more than one drabble for the major characters. **

**Disclaimer: If I owned Danny Phantom, why would I be posting this here?**

* * *

_Dragon_

The trees loomed over the campsite like monsters. Their branches seemed to reach toward the children, trying to drag them deeper into the forest.

Jack tried not to think about tree monsters, but he and the other boys couldn't help looking anxiously into the dark woods. There was no light except the stars and their crackling campfire. Every so often they could hear strange noises coming from the darkness. The boys were all too nervous to start any conversations. There was the sense that any noise or movement might call unwanted attention from the shadowed trees.

There was a sharp crack from the direction of the tents. A couple of the boys jumped at the sound. The others laughed nervously when they saw what the sound was. Two older boys were coming down from the campsite. They didn't have flashlights, but the campfire was close enough to the tents that it didn't matter.

"Hey, kids!" said the older one. Nate, if Jack remembered right. He was a friend of Jack's brother Mark. "You're not dead yet!" Nate's friend grinned, and a few of the younger boys laughed nervously again. The older boys sat down in a gap on the far side of the campfire.

"So, you guys think you'll survive the night?" said Nate's friend, his voice ominously low. He hunched his shoulders and looked around the campfire circle, making contact with each younger boy in turn. "They say that new campers disappear out here, you know." The flickering campfire made harsh shadows on the older boy's face.

"But you never saw anyone disappear, right?" one of the younger boys asked. Nate's friend fixed him with a glare.

"'Course not, stupid. You don't see them disappear. It waits until no one else is looking, or until some stupid kid decides to wander off alone. _Then_ it gets you."

It? Jack looked around the forest again, as if expecting the trees to grab them all up then and there.

"What's IT?" he asked.

Nate grinned. "The Woodbine Monster," he said in a voice that was nearly a whisper. "It's a fifty-foot long snake with teeth like a great white and rhino horns on its head. And it has a giant blade on the end of its tail that it uses to decapitate kids." His friend stood up and started circling the group, but Nate had all of the younger boys' attentions now. "They say that it's made up of the bones of everyone who died in these woods, so whenever it kills another kid it gets even bigger. The last time anyone saw it and lived it was almost fifty feet long. That was twenty years ago.

"It lives underground, but it can smell people from ten miles away. So it'll follow a camp group for hours, waiting for someone to leave the group. And then—"

"SNAP!" Nate's friend shouted, right behind Jack. Jack and the kid next to him jumped up and screamed. A moment later the other boys started laughing. The boy next to Jack awkwardly tried to join in, but Jack just glared at Nate's friend. He'd completely fallen for a stupid trick.

"That was stupid," Jack said. The older boy just smirked.

"I bet that monster'll get you," he said.

"No he won't," Jack argued. "If he does, I'll punch his lights out." This time the boys were definitely laughing at him, not at the prank. Jack tried to ignore that.

"It'd eat you in one bite, shrimp," the older boy said. As if to prove his point, the boy took a step closer. He was a few years older than Jack, and much taller.

"Then I'd hold its mouth open with a stick!" Jack countered. Most of the other boys were roaring in laughter.

They quieted down once they heard footsteps coming from the tents. Turning around, Jack saw one of the counselors illuminated in the dim firelight.

"Alright, kids. Enough ghost stories," he said. "Time to hit the hay." The boys all whined and grumbled, but they helped smother the campfire with dirt and then followed the counselor back to the tents.

* * *

Three days later, most of the boys had completely forgotten about the Monster of Woodbine Camp. Hours of hiking and canoeing had given them other things to think about. In the light of day, spiders and poison ivy were scarier than a giant subterranean bone-snake.

Jack had mostly forgotten the monster, but he couldn't forget how Nate and his friend Kevin had made fun of him. How could he, when they seemed to make him their favorite target? Sure, they made fun of all the younger boys, but Jack had been tripped, pushed, and Indian-burned more times than he could count.

This was one of those times. Jack found himself face-first in the muddy bank of Lake Woodbine. Kevin stood behind him, looking away all too innocently to make sure that the counselors hadn't seen him push Jack. When the younger boy pushed himself up, Kevin yelled.

"Mister Pete! Jack fell in the mud!"

The counselor turned around to look at them. He sighed when he saw Jack's sorry state. Jack was covered from head to toe with grimy grey mud, and water had soaked his clothes.

"Alright. Jack, go to camp and get cleaned up," Pete said.

"But—"

"Right now. If you get sick you'll miss the whole program, not just the canoe." Jack nodded, though he couldn't quite hide his annoyance. So he walked toward camp, hands in his pockets and head down. He kicked at a rock that happened to be in front of him. When he was older, this wouldn't happen, he thought. He was going to grow up to be as tall as his dad, and then no one would push him into a stupid canoe pond, or steal his toothbrush, or…

A low growling sound interrupted his thoughts. Jack froze. He couldn't think of what that could be. It seemed to be coming from everywhere. Was it a puma? He wasn't sure that there even were pumas or even wolves here.

The noise didn't seem to be going away. But it wasn't getting louder either. Jack gulped, then took a step forward. Nothing happened, so he decided to take another step. Then another.

The growling turned into a roar. Jack saw something out of the corner of his eye and ducked. A gust of cold air rushed over him. Once it was gone Jack got the nerve to look around. He didn't have to look far.

It wasn't made of bone, and it seemed to have legs, but it did look a lot like a monstrous snake. It had to be fifty feet long, at least! It was dark brown with glowing red eyes, and Jack almost thought it was glowing. As Jack got to his wobbly feet, he did the only thing he could think of. He ran.

The monster behind him roared. Jack felt another freezing wind as it rushed over him. He wasn't going to make it! The monster would snap him up whole before he could get to the camp!

Instead, it just kept going. The monster completely bypassed him, and instead flew toward a giant dead tree on the side of the path. There was a green flash as it seemed to go through the tree. It didn't come out the other side. In seconds the monster was gone, and the green hole in the tree disappeared.

Jack collapsed on the ground. He was cold, muddy, and panting for breath. When he finally calmed down a little, he whispered to himself.

"Wait till they hear I saw a _ghost_ monster," he said with a grin.


	3. 3: Decibels

**A/N: So, that whole hurricane evacuation thing? Not fun. Sorry for the delay. Rating upped to T because it's a ghost chapter, which means death.**

**Edit: Sorry, the site kept messing up when I tried to add lines to break up the chapters. Didn't mean to have to resubmit this.  
**

* * *

_Decibels_

She sat in an oversized leather chair, her nails making a clicking noise as she tapped her fingers against the wooden armrests. She was waiting for the man across from her to say something, but he was completely ignoring her. Instead he focused on the thin folder of papers on his desk. Her resume. He followed the words with a pen, so she knew exactly where he was on the page. It shouldn't have been taking this long. There was almost nothing to go over, and half of what _was_ there was fake. Could he have figured that out?

"Miss, how old are you?" he asked.

"Eighteen," she lied. She didn't quite look eighteen, but most people didn't look twice when she told them. No one had carded her for cigarettes since her fifteenth birthday.

"May I see your license?" the man asked. She tried to hide a frown as she took it out. He had a photocopy on his desk. There was only one reason he would want to see the original. The man looked it over, scrutinizing the small plastic card like it was a puzzle. The girl shifted in the chair. She couldn't hide the worried frown on her face. The ID was a fake, but it was an incredibly good one. And incredibly expensive.

"Miss, what's your real name?" The question caught her off-guard.

"I- What do you mean? My name is—"

"I know what's on the ID," the man said. He put the card down and looked at her with tired grey eyes. "But I also know a runaway when I see one. Who are you really?"

The girl glared at him. "I don't know what—"

"Kid, you look like you haven't slept in a week, your clothes are a mess, and you've got a camping backpack and a guitar in the hallway. If that doesn't scream runaway, nothing does."

The chair scraped on the linoleum as she stood up to leave. "I don't need to listen to this," she said. She reached over and snatched the ID and resume from him, then turned on her heel and left. The receptionist told her in a dry monotone to have a nice day as she picked up her backpack and guitar case.

The streets were crowded with teens about her age, all just getting out of school. She blended in easily with them, and let the crowd lead her feet as she thought of other things. Namely, that bastard. She was getting low on money. If someone didn't hire her soon, she would starve. And that was the third interview today. Either they weren't hiring, raised questions when she didn't provide a phone number, or they immediately pegged her for a runaway. Even MacBurgers had turned her away. That seemed impossible. Some of the people working there looked more ratty than she did. Sure, so she was carrying everything she owned on her back. They didn't know that. And it wasn't like it was a whole lot. She had three changes of clothes, her guitar, resume, and about fifty dollars to her name. Hell, even that she'd left back in the foster home in Arizona.

Her stomach grumbled, but she ignored it and kept following the crowd. Hopefully they would bring her to a park eventually. She had only been in the town for a few days, and had no idea where anything was. Finding food and work was a bit more important than sightseeing.

Thankfully she found herself at a park soon enough. She wandered around for a couple minutes before finding a good place to set up. It wasn't too busy, but it wasn't isolated. She dropped her backpack next to the bench and took out the guitar.

Really, her singing was a lot better than her guitar playing. But after three days of sleeping wherever she could between trying to find work, and the two days of hitchhiking and public transit that it had taken to get to the city, she would be surprised if she could finish a song to save her life. So instead she played a sloppy version of "Stairway to Heaven" and hoped that people would at least find her too pitiful to ignore.

After five songs she stopped to look down at her case. There was about a handful of change and a dollar bill. Not very much, but it would get her a burger.

"Hey there."

She looked up and saw a man standing above her. He was wearing a sleek black suit and sunglasses, and had very obviously bleached hair.

"What do you want?" she demanded. The man chuckled.

"I think the question is, what do you want?" he asked with a practiced smirk. The girl just scowled. "Seriously, kid. You're not too bad. Bit tired, I'm guessing. You look like you just got tossed out the back of a truck. But a good night's sleep and I'm betting that we could make you a star."

She rolled her eyes. "Are you for real?" she snapped. "Like I'm gonna believe some big wig is stumbling through a park looking for musicians. Why don't you bother the tap-dancing twins back there? They're actually good." The man laughed again.

"You're good, kid. I like you. Tell you what." He took a white card out of his pocket and dropped it in her guitar case. "If you're still looking for work in a day or two, call that number." The man walked off without a second glance. She watched him until he went behind a bush, then picked up the card.

_Aleks Adamson_

_Talent Recruiter_

_AM Records_

_555-2359_

She glared at the card for a few minutes. All logic told her to toss it. There was no way anyone who was actually with AM Records would just pick her up, especially for some shoddy playing in a random park. But she slipped the scrap of paper in her backpack and went back to playing her guitar.

* * *

She managed to last a week. A week of rejections, of sleeping in the parks, of scraping by on only a few dollars a day. The mugging was what tipped her over. Some punk tried to steal her guitar when she was sleeping. She had woken up and grabbed it back, but the guy knocked her into the bench. When she came to her guitar was missing and her meager possessions strewn all over the grass. Her wallet was open and the bills gone.

There wasn't anything else she could think to do. The cops wouldn't listen to her. They'd probably send her back to a foster home. Starving still sounded better than that.

The business card was stained and crumpled but still readable. Her hand shook a bit as she tapped the numbers into a payphone. It rang three times.

"Hello?" a man's voice said over the line. It could have been the same guy; she couldn't exactly remember what he sounded like.

"H-hey. I was calling for Aleks Adamson. H-he probably doesn't remember me, but he told me to call this number if I needed a job." She was a bit too tired to care how much her voice was shaking.

"Oh, are you the girl from the park the other day?" the man asked.

"Yes!" she exclaimed. He remembered her!

"Is everything okay, kid? I could go pick you up if you really need help."

"I…" Was that a good thing? She had no idea what time it was. Would his office be closing now? "If that's not a problem…"

"Don't worry about it. My job is helping kids like you. Where are you?"

"I'm at 3400 Lawrence Street," she answered. Part of her mind was telling her this was a bad idea. But the idea of someone coming to help her was enough to make her ignore that. She was getting out of here. He was going to help.

"I'll see you soon."

* * *

"Shit. We got another."

Detective Norwell stepped over scattered trash bags to reach his partner. Lawrence was grimacing at the scene below him. They had seen worse, sure, but this wasn't a job someone could get used to.

"Same MO as the others?" Norwell asked. Lawrence nodded.

"Looks like." He picked up the bloodstained backpack and gingerly opened it.

"The labmonkeys checked everything out already?" Norwell asked.

"Yeah, they got their pictures." Lawrence shuffled through the contents of the bag until he pulled out a wallet. He showed that to Norwell before opening it. "Yeah, it's gotta be the same guy. Fake ID, see?" He handed the card to his partner. It was good quality, as fakes went, but there wasn't a hologram seal on the front.

"Ember McLain? Sounds like a stage name," Norwell noted. "There isn't a real ID in there?"

"No," Lawrence said, frowning. "Looks like another runaway."

The detectives looked around the site for a few more minutes before leaving. It was the third Westside Slasher case that month.

"Well, that's gross," the girl's voice had a strange echo behind it. Her feet didn't quite seem to meet the ground as she walked over to the broken corpse. "Guess this means no open casket."

Ember knew it was her body that she was leaning over. She knew that only hours before, she had been seeing through those eyes. But now it was just a hollow mass of decaying flesh. Ember tried touching the body just to see what it felt like, but her hand went right through the skin. She stood back up and readjusted the electric guitar on her back.

The nameless corpse behind her would be forgotten, but she wouldn't. Ember would make sure everyone knew who she was.


End file.
